New Life
by LovelyMetalhead
Summary: Ryou takes a little test with less than desirable results. How can she break it to Marik? Rated T for implications and genderbending. Fem!Ryou x Yami No Marik. Deathshipping


Ryou sat nervously on the toilet seat.

Thoughts of those nights of passion she shared with Marik a few weeks ago ran through her head.

Kisses on the neck, arms around the waist, clothes thrown carelessly on the floor, heart rates exponentiating... plastic breaking.

She got scared after those events. She was late. She was unsure of what to do.

15 minutes couldn't seem to go by fast enough.

She nervously paced back and forth in the bathroom, waiting for the ceremonial beep. It seemed her heart was pounding in her head.

_What do I tell Marik? _she thought. _I don't think either of us are ready for something like... a child..._

She sat on the edge of the tub in thought. _I don't know anything about taking care of a child... How could this have happened? We should have been more careful! We're not ready for this! Marik's already stressed out enough at work, he doesn't need something else to stress him out! Oh God, what if he makes me get an ab-_

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Ryou looked over on the counter. There lay the stick that would tell her of her fate. She nervously picked it up, afriad to look at the results that would come. Her eyes looked down at the test.

A plus sign.

"Oh God..." Ryou covered her face with a milky hand. "How do I tell Marik? I don't think we could handle something like this. A little life form coming into our lives..."

She dazed off into thought... _What would it look like?_ She imagined the baby to have Marik's Dark sking and her white hair. It would have beautiful hazel eyes. Tiny hands would reach out to Ryou to be carried and fed. Soft, pudgy cheeks would smile out at her. Would it be a boy or a girl? _Girl..._ she thought to herself. _A beautiful little gi-_

Her thoughts were interrupted by sounds of the front door opening and shoes being taken off.

"Ryou!" Marik called. Ryou was startled by the voice.

"Oh crap," she looked down to see she still had the pregnancy test in her hand. She frantically threw it in the trash, along with the box it came in. _What if he saw it in there?_ Ryou quickly took some toilet paper, crumpled it up, and threw it on top of the test, concealing it from sight.

She flushed the toilet to make it sound as if she really were just going to the bathroom. She washed her hands, then walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom that she and Marik shared. Her gaze fell upon the bed for a few seconds until thoughts of last week came back into her mind. Ryou shook those thoughts away, reminding herself she had to go to see Marik.

She entered the living room to find her husband lying on the couch.

"Hey, Marik," she greeted, walking over.

The spiky-haired Egyptian looked over, smiling at the sight of his wife. "Hey, Ryou," he said. He reached his hands up to cup his wife's face as he greeted her with a chaste kiss. "Come here." Marik adjusted himself and gently pulled Ryou down so that she lay comfortably on top of him.

"How was work today?" the whitenette asked her husband.

Marik pulled his head back in distress. "Oh man," he groaned.

"That bad?"

"Yeah." The Egyptian let out a long, breathy sigh. "It's just, there's this guy and his 11-year-old who always come to the gun range. And every time, EVERY goddamn time, the kid always has to cause problems. He still doesn't know how to freaking grip agun."

Ryou briefly looked away awkwardly. "Oh."

"And I get slightly annoyed, and his dad always thinks I have some sort of problem when I try to show the kid how to grip right so that he doesn't shoot up the place and hurt somebody. 'He's just a kid!' he'll say. Come on, dude! Your kid should have enough sense to grip a gun correctly by now."

The brown-eyed girl wrapped her arms around her husband's neck. "I'm sorry."

Marik replied by putting his arms around her waist. "Not your fault, dear. It's just... this is why I hate it when people bring their kids to the gun range. It would be better if they didn't allow kids thereat all."

Ryou's heart sunk at those words. _So he won't want a child... I was almost looking forward to it..._ she thought disappointedly. She didn't let the disappointment show on her face, however. "I'm sorry you had a bad day at work, Marik," she said sympathetically.

"I said don't worry about it," Marik said gently to the whitenette. "It's not your fault." He ran his fingers through his wife's hair. "Besides, I have you to come home to. That's all I need to forget about everything."

He smiled at her, making her blush.

"Come here." His hand on the back of her head, Marik brought Ryou in closer for a kiss.

"So how was your day?" Marik asked.

Ryou froze at his question. _I can't tell him about the... surprise... but... what AM I supposed to say?_ She had to say something quick, before Marik knew.

"It... was rather boring..." she quickly made up. "I was feeling a little sick earlier, but I'm fine now." That part wasn't a lie.

"Oh really?" Marik whispered sincerely. He brought up one of his hands to Ryou's forehead, despite her saying that she felt fine. "There's no fever now..." He returned the hand back to the back of Ryou's head. "Well, it's good you're alright now." He brought her closer to kiss her again.

Marik lied there with Ryou, completely unaware they had another occupant with them.

-

Ryou sat in her shared bed, trying to read her book. The whole day had passed and Marik still didn't know about the lifeform inside of her. She set her book down on the nightstand and turned off the lamp, obviously not able to concentrate on the book. She lied on her side and pulled the covers over her, hoping to sleep well for the night. It was then she saw her cell phone on the nightstand.

_Even if Marik doesn't know... I have to talk to someone about this..._ she thought to herself. She picked it up and started sending a message to the first person she could trust with such a secret.

_Malik, can I come over tomorrow? There's something I need to talk to you about._

Send.

She gently placed the device back on the nightstand. Hopefully Malik would be able to meet with her. It was times like these that Malik knew exactly what to do.

The cell phone buzzed on the nightstand, indicating Malik's reply.

_Of course. Be over at around noon, okay?_

Ryou breathed a sigh of relief. At least she had some relief for now.

She was about to let herself drift off to sleep when she felt the other side of the bed shift, and a body creep next to her.

"I know we're not getting sleepy, are we?" Marik growled into her ear.

Oh crap. Marik was in the mood. It didn't help Ryou that he was kissing her shoulder, up her neck. It _really_ didn't help her knowing that the result of a few weeks ago was sitting inside her.

"Marik," she whined. She received no reply; Marik turned her on her back and was kissing her lips a little viciously, begging for her to let them have a duel of tongues.

Ryou pulled back, pushing her husband away. "Marik, please..." She looked up him, his face growing disappointed.

"What's wrong?" Marik asked, cupping Ryou's face with his hand.

"Well, nothing..." Lies. "I'm just not in the mood."

"Oh really?" Marik got a sly smirk on his face. "I think that can be changed." He proceeded to run his hands down the sides of Ryou's waist.

"Please, Marik..." She pulled his arms away from her. "I also have a bit of a headache." More lies.

"Ooohhh," Marik whined. He chastely kissed Ryou on the lips. "I'm sorry about that." He lied himself next to Ryou. "Can we at least spoon?"

Despite how she was internally fighting with herself, Ryou had to chuckle. "Okay, we can spoon, but nothing more."

Marik put his arms around his wife, chuckling as his kissed her cheek.

"Good night," he gently said, secretly wishing that he would have continued with his actions. But he loved Ryou. So he hesitantly stopped.

"Good night, Marik," she replied, taking in the warmth of his arms. "I love you."

-

The next day, Ryou found herself walking to her friend, Malik's house. She tightly clutched the bag of food she was bringing with her.

Ding dong.

"Oh hey Ryou!" Malik greeted promptly as she opened the door. The friends hugged each other before the whitenette walked inside.

"I brought some lunch for us," she pointed out.

"Oh, Ryou, you didn't have to!" Malik said. "But thanks! Go ahead and set it on the table."

Ryou obliged. "So, how are things with Bakura?"

"Oh, quite well!" Malik replied, getting plates and setting them on the table. "He's off being an artist right now, getting things ready for a show."

"Exciting!"

"Uh-huh, and I've heard rumours of the public being jealous of his 'hot girlfriend' already."

"Oh, wow."

Malik brought glasses of water out to the table and organized the food onto their plates. "How about you, Ryou? What brings you over here?"

"Well..." Ryou struggled to speak, at first. "Marik and I..."

"Oh my, Ra, please don't tell me he's doing something stupid," Malik groaned.

"No, nothing like that!" Ryou sighed. "Well... we were... fooling around a few weeks ago and..."

"Don't tell me you're going to go into detail about that," Malik chuckled. "Even though you're my friend and all, I don't really care to know about anyone's sex life."

Ryou horrendously blushed at that. "No, I wasn't going to get into that!"

"What is it, then, Ryou?" Wow, was Malik oblivious sometimes.

"Yesterday, I took a pregnancy test..." Ryou finally said.

"Oh my Ra, Ryou..." Malik gasped, finally realizing what her friend was getting at.

"I know..." Ryou looked down, slightly ashamed. "I was unsure of what to tell Marik, and then he told me of his day at work, and he let it on that he didn't like children..." She was on the verge of tears.

"It's okay, Ryou," Malik assured, hugging her friend.

"I was actually kind of looking forward to this, but if Marik doesn't want it..."

"No, Ryou, don't even _think_ about that for a second." Malik looked down at her friend, concerned. "Secondly, you don't even know for sure if the test was truly positive. Did you take a home test?"

Ryou nodded.

"Well, then you have to go to your doctor and be _sure_ about it. Those things aren't always right, you know."

Ryou looked up at her friend. "If that's the case..."

"I'll go with you if you want me to." Malik smiled.

"Could you, please?"

"We can go today, if you'd like. But first, we should eat."

-

Marik was sitting on his lunch break with his friend, Touzouku.

"Whoot! Lunchtime!" Touzouku enthusiastically shouted throughout the breakroom.

"Calm yourself, Tou, it's only lunch," Marik tried to assure his friend as he sat down to eat.

"ONLY lunch? How could you say that Marik? It's the reason why I drag myself to work everyday! It's what keeps me motivated!" Touzouku flailed his arms around to get his point across.

"If food is what keeps you motivated, then I should feel sorry for you, Tou." Marik laughed as he got out his lunch.

"I should feel sorry for _you_ Marik, since you don't seem motivated enough." Marik's hyper friend retorted, ready to devour his turkey sandwich.

"Please, what more do I need to be motivated about?" Marik laughed. "The most I look forward to is going home to my wife when I get off work."

"Oh yeah, how is Ryou?" Touzouku asked with a mouthful of food.

_Attractive..._ Marik thought sarcastically. "Well, she was sick yesterday and acting weird," he said.

"Weird, how?"

"Well..." Marik looked around to make sure no one else was listening. He then leaned in to whisper to his friend, "Last night she _wasn't in the mood_."

Touzouku gasped loud enough that he might have choked on the air.

"Shhhh!" Marik insisted. "It's not that big a deal. Besides, what do you care about my... sex life?"

"Sod off, that's what!" the child-like man shouted before taking another bite of his sandwich.

BANG. "AHHHHHH!"

Marik turned around, worried and alert.

"What the hell was that?" Tou asked, wondering.

Marik ran out of the breakroom to find a man -with his child standing next to him- in screaming in pain and anguish. The man was on his knees and grasping at his stomach. Meanwhile, the child was crying... and there was a gun on the ground at the child's knees.

"Sir, what happened?" Marik asked urgently.

"I was... I was just trying... to show my son... how to..."

"Don't strain yourself, sir. Tou, call an ambulence!"

Touzouku nodded and ran for the nearest phone.

"What happened here?" Marik asked the child, who didn't seem to be hurt.

"D-dad was just... trying to show me..." it was hard for the child to speak between tears. But by this time Marik had a bit of an idea of how this all happened.

"Let me guess, your father was trying to show you how to hold your gun properly and then you accidentally shot him?"

The child nodded.

Marik frustratedly scoffed internally.

"Well, look, you're dad's going to be fine, okay?" Marik assured the child.

"O-okay."

Touzouku ran back over. "The ambulence is on its way!"

"Good!" Marik shouted back. He turned to the man, who was still in pain. "Sir, if you could please, try and breath steadily!"

The only response he got was more anguished cries of pain.

-

"Ryou, relax, stop fidgeting in your seat!" Malik chastised her friend.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so nervous is all!" The white-haired beauty whined as she and her tan friend were sitting in the waiting room of the hospital. "And the wait is always forever since-"

"Ryou Ishtar!" A voice cut her off. She looked up to see a woman with a clipboard in her hand. "The doctor is ready to see you now."

Malik pat her friend on the shoulder as she nervously got up. "Good luck," she said.

-

Of course, it had to be him to escort the wounded man in the ambulance. Tou had to stay at the range because of "important business he had to attend to."

_Lunch is hardly important business right now, Tou, you asshole,_Marik thought bitterly as he watched the man on the stretcher, attached to an oxygen tank or something.

"How is he?" Marik asked the ambulance worker who was treating the man as best as possible.

"A little unstable at the moment, but I think he'll be fine!" was the loud reply over the sirens.

This _is why children shouldn't be allowed at the range, _Marik once again thought bitterly as the ambulance pulled into the hospital.

-

"Well, Mrs. Ishtar," the doctor said, looking at the test results, "you are definitely pregnant."

"Oh," was all Ryou could say, looking down in slight disappointment.

"Is there anything wrong?" the doctor asked, seeing Ryou's lack of excitement.

She promptly looked up. "Oh no! Nothing at all! It's just... I couldn't be too sure. Thank you doctor."

"I'll see you soon, then," the doctor said, smiling, opening the door to let Ryou out.

"Thank you, doctor!" She smiled back, waving the man goodbye. The smile disappeared when she turned away, walking back towards the waiting room.

_Now I'm really worried, _Ryou thought. _I can't possibly face Marik about this. But then again I can't just hide it from him, and then nine months later a baby comes out of nowhere... I don't know what to do!_ She hid her face in her hands.

She was broken from her thoughts, though, as she heard a ruckus not too far away.

"We need to get this man in the OR, quick! The sooner this bullet's out of him, the better!"

She saw a group of doctors and workers running a stretcher in the opposite direction from her.

_I hope that man's okay, _she thought, continuing her walk back to Malik, who would take her home.

But then she froze when she saw a familiar spikey-haired blonde looking in the direction of the stretcher.

-

"Now that that's taken care of," Marik said to himself, turning around, "I'll have to find some way to get back to work. I guess I'll call Malik." He stopped when he saw his wife at the other end of the hallway. "Ryou?" He walked further to see that it was in fact his white-haired wife standing there. "What's she doing here? I hope nothing bad happened." She didn't look too good. Her face said it all. "Ryou!"

She looked up at him, unsure of what to say. She remained silent as her husband finally reached her, putting an arm around her waist.

"What are you doing here?"

"I..." she said, avoiding looking at him. "I'm... I don't want to talk about it here."

"Fine then, let's go home," the Egyptian said, walking her to the exit.

"But, don't you have work still?"

"I can miss the rest of today. I'm more worried about the well-being of my wife."

"Oh, I see..." Ryou still couldn't bring herself to look at her husband. "Well, Malik's in the waiting room. She took me here."

"Okay, then." Marik kissed his wife on the forehead. She flushed from embarrassment and uncertainty.

-

The ride home was quiet and awkward. For Ryou. She had internally begged for Malik not to leave once she dropped them off at the gun range where Marik had his car. Malik kept Marik a little distracted from Ryou, because she _knew _he probably would be asking her questions. And she didn't want that. Not in her internally conflicted state. Ryou looked up as Marik pulled into their driveway.

"So," she finally asked Marik once they were sitting on the couch and she received an expectant glare from him. "What were you doing at the hospital?"

Marik sighed, slightly frustrated. Of course he was expecting his wife to tell him what the hell she was doing there, but he decided not to push it. "Well, the kid and father I was telling you about, the one that can't grip a gun right?"

Ryou nodded.

"The kid finally shot his father.

"Oh my," Ryou responded, putting her hand to her face, worriedly. "Will he be all right?"

"He'll be fine," Marik said nonchalantly. "But..."

Here was the fun part for Ryou. Oh joy.

"I'm more concerned about why _you _were at the hospital."

"I..." Ryou once again struggled with how exactly to tell him. "I'm not sure about how to tell you this..."

"Go on, Ryou," Marik prodded. "Just tell me. I only hope that whatever the reason, you're not hurt in any way." He grabbed Ryou's hands in his.

She looked down, still unsure. Marik's grip on her hands tightened, the silence filling him with worry.

"Marik." She finally would just say it. It was killing them both. "I'm not hurt, don't worry." Marik sighed a breath of relief at that statement. "But... there is a drastic change in my condition." She looked him in the eyes. "I'm... pregnant."

Marik simply blinked his eyes at that. "Really?" he asked. He hugged his wife. "Oh thank Ra! Here I thought you had some deadly virus or something!" He looked her back in the eyes. "Pregnant, really?" Something then hit him. "Is that why you weren't in the mood last night?" He said that last part with a heavily teasing tone.

Ryou blushed, hard. "Well, yes." She was throughly shocked at Marik's reaction. It was way more positive than what she had expected. "But..."

"But what?" Marik regained his look of worry.

"I didn't think you'd want it..."

"Why?" He placed his fingers under his wife's chin, wondering what could have led her to that idea.

"Well... the way you were talking about how children shouldn't be allowed at the gun range made me think that you wouldn't want a child."

Marik didn't believe it. _That _rant he had going on made Ryou think that?

"Oh Ryou," he said, kissing Ryou's forehead. "Of course I'd love a child. Especially if it's with you. What I said yesterday was only talking about how other people can't seem to raise a child. But if it's ours, I _know_ that we'll raise it properly." He kissed Ryou's cheek. "And I'm sure that our child will know how to grip a gun properly after I teach him."

"Or her," Ryou chuckled.

-

Ryou lay in her bed, finishing the last page of the book she was reading. She stretched her arms, set the book back on the nightstand, and turned off the lamp. She smiled and laughed when she felt the other side of the bed shift and a few kisses on her shoulder. She and Marik lied down next to each other, facing each other. Marik kissed his wife again. First on the forehead, then on the lips, and then he lowered himself down to her stomach, kissing it and rubbing it gently. Of course Ryou wasn't showing yet, but Marik knew there was a growing lifeform inside of her that had to be handled with care. He propped himself back to where he could see Ryou's face. "I love you," he said, kissing her lips once more. He looked down. "And I can't wait to meet you, little one." Marik brought his arms around the blushing Ryou, finally falling asleep, and aware of the child inside of her.


End file.
